FoAM - Feeding

Sound and Taste Workshop

christina — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:24:42 +0000

Start: 2011-04-18 00:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2011-04-20 00:00 Europe/Brussels

The workshop organized by Filemon at the youth center " A place to live" in Laeken and guided by Bram (Aifoon) and Rasa (FoAM)
was introducing different tastes and sounds by association methods.
The children involved created visual expressions of different edible ingredients and sounds that surround us. They correlated tastes and sounds in order to create an imaginary edible neighborhood.

The 7 young participants kids started their first session blind folded, smelling and tasting different vegetable extracts and ingredients.
While tasting a number of questions where asked: what color do you imagine, what memories come to you, what shape and texture do you see, etc...

Still blindfolded, the children were drawing what they imagined on the table cloth using the ingredients and extracts and going by color and intensity of 5 tastes (sour, bitter, sweet,salty, umami).
Later, the children started to experiment with extracts on a piece of paper. Honey, cinnamon powder, red cabbage juice, paprika - landed on the paper creating a number of wonderfully bizarre drawings!
Then, some scented oils were prepared using mushrooms, beetroot, carrots, lavender.

The second session was guided by sound experts. The children where introduced to the basic techniques of listening, finding the sound, record, place it on the computer etc. They were also asked to match the drawings they had made to one of their sound recordings.

The third session was about edible “building materials”:
waffles, Chinese crackers, corn puffs, seeds, flowers, honey, wasabi paste, condensed milk, coconut oil and many others. The task was to build your imaginary house! Strange and beautiful buildings were erected. Some kids did not stop after one building, but kept on building until their stack of waffles was gone...

When everyone was satisfied with their results, they were invited to tell us a story about the inhabitants of the house, which country it is in, who are the neighbors. So we learned that there is a duck called Paprika who lives in the des(s)ert of Africa, or a group of students occupies a house with a wild swimming pool.

For the last session, the children split in two groups -
one went looking for sounds, that could fit well with the created houses. After recording on the streets around the youth center what they found interesting, they composed some very beautiful soundtracks.
The second group was working party treats for an imaginary street feast.

According to the food pairing principles, components were chosen to add to make chocolate. All the ingredients had to be prepared, chocolate melted, assembled together, pored into forms, cooled down.

Then it was time for the small exhibition - We hung the drawings on the walls of the terrace, the houses where displayed on the tables, the sound system installed. After a few words of reflection, we all could enjoy sweets, smelly oils , self made breads and a few compositions for the ears.

Special thanks to children for enthusiasm and energy,Aifoon for expertise and calmness,Coralie and Jura for the assistance, “A place to live” for a warm welcome, Pieter for transport, Lina and Christina for sharing ideas, Maki for introducing a wonderful world of smells!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5669776138/in/set-72157626607731984/
http://www.aifoon.org/projecten.php?id=84
http://www.filemon.be/2011/04/taste-sound-workshop/

Middle Kingdom of Weeds festival

theun — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:45:27 +0000

Start: 2011-05-08 10:30 GMT+2

End: 2011-05-08 12:00 GMT+2

Be part of mapping the energetic value of the Dutch urban landscape; how much energy does it take for semi-skilled contemporary foragers to gather wild foods and what energetic value is contained in nearby urban environments? On May 8th the Middle Kingdom of Weeds festival features a forage psychogeographic expedition that will starts at 10.30 from Station Sloterdijk, Amsterdam. Using .walk algorithms this foraging expedition will map and explore the caloric potential of the area.

Team members include:
- a geographer, who maps the edibles on Boskoi
- a timekeeper, who maps the times spent walking and harvesting
- spotters and harvesters

On return the wild foods will be weighed to make a calculation of the energy harvested in the expedition.

On the basis of this a map is made of the caloric value along the walk, the energy budget of the group and the best foraging algorithms.

This expedition is open to all.

Hosted by Wilfried Hou Je Bek (Cryptoforesty) and Theun Karelse (Boskoi).

Open Sauces in Pula

maja — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:25:21 +0000

Start: 2011-04-30 20:00 GMT+2

End: 2011-05-01 00:00 GMT+2

In Pula's emerging cultural centre 'Galerija Makina', Maja Kuzmanovic talks about FoAM's approach to food & resilience, diet as medicine, kitchen art & science, urban hunting & gathering and other topics collected in the Open Sauces book. Several delicacies from this book will be spiced up with seasonal Istrian wild foods and offered for degustation.

Galerija Makina: http://on.fb.me/icu7qt
Open Sauces: http://opensauces.cc

FOODPRINTS

lina — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:17:34 +0000

FOODPRINTS;
A biologically-centered toolkit for a resilient Stockholm

2010 has been declared ‘The year of International biodiversity’, and also a year in which Stockholm is ‘Europe’s green capital’. With these two celebrations, ‘Foodprints’ explores how the discipline of biomimicry can promote urban food resilience and opportunities for biodiversity to flourish in urban developments. There is an inherent relationship between the city and how food arrives on our plates. We want to investigate how to create ‘resilient’ cities that mimic nature’s ecosystems, where all the elements are interactive, abundant in feed-back loops, responsive, engaging, conducive to life, and always looking to reach the best use of resources. Our goal will be to bring forward a food culture, inspired by these ecosystems, through creation of a biologically-centered toolkit which we will apply on the urban visions for Norra Djurgarden area of Stockholm. Through creating such a tool, the project aims to be long term, continuous and inviting, applicable to other future schemes.

We will thread together both scientific, futuristic, artistic and sensory perspectives to review our urban ecology and the way we feed ourselves. Food will become our communication device, and we will present our explorations in a ‘maltid’ designed around the senses and experience. We hope that ‘reaction to the meal’ and proposals, can inspire invited guests involved in the development plans for the Norra Djurgarden scheme, to create food system resilience as part of the sustainable planning process. In turn, ‘Foodprints’ will collaborate with a variety of disciplines in a very creative process; science and biology with the built envi- ronment and experiential design, creating a multi-disciplinary cocktail of collaborations and introducing this strong ‘community’ of solutions to the city.

More information:
www.innovativkultur.se

This project is kindly made possible through Innovativ Kultur, City of Stockholm. The funding call focused on bio-inspired projects.

Contact Project Leaders:
Anna Maria Orru
Johan Zetterquist
E: info@scene-thinking.com

Toegepast: Fit to Boost!

maja — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:32:41 +0000

Start: 2010-09-08 18:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-11-13 21:00 Europe/Brussels

FoAM has a groWorld installation, pruned and cared for by Lina Kusaite at the "Toegepast: Fit to Boost!" exhibition.

Rasa Alksnyte, Christina Stadlbauer and Maja Kuzmanovic prepare their food interventions at the Toegepast Dream Team Dinners.

Rasa Alksnyte works with one ingredient: goat, to elaborate a day-long food performance.

http://www.designvlaanderen.be/en/about-design-flanders/toegepast-fit-to...

Launch Open Sauces Book

maja — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:54:32 +0000

Start: 2010-10-22 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Launch of the long awaited Open Sauces book & the Open Sauces Cooking Club.

De Maag als Compas

theun — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:30:24 +0000

Start: 2010-09-27 21:30 GMT+2

In this project Wietske Maas explores the potential urban wild food sources of Amsterdam-Noord. FoAM will be participating in the foraging with Boskoi the foraging application for mobile phone. An important part of the meal will be the harvested garden snails that are on show at the Mediamatic snailfarm on Vijzelstraat.

http://www.mediamatic.net/page/162673/en

By design for design

maja — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:33:00 +0000

Start: 2010-09-23 09:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-09-23 21:00 Europe/Brussels

Rasa Alksnyte is one of the participants at the Design for Design event at Toegepast: Fit to boost.

images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157625132513974/

Flemish Primitives

maja — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:21:24 +0000

Start: 2010-02-08 11:30 GMT+2

End: 2010-02-08 12:00 GMT+2

As a guest of the international gastronomic event The Flemish Primitives, FoAM will present a sneak preview of the Open Sauces book.

http://www.theflemishprimitives.com/

Urban Sanatorium Supper

theun — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:31:54 +0000

Start: 2009-10-17 14:00 GMT+2

End: 2009-10-18 19:00 GMT+2

A supper for pathologic appetites will be served 19:00h on 18 October 2009 in the W.G kunst, a former sanatorium as part of the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital complex, Amsterdam.

The meal will be prepared with urban medicinal plants, harvested from in and around Amsterdam. Each course is a victual vaccine made of minute amounts of urbanic matter to provide resistance against and treatment for most of our urban ailments, real or hypochondric. From antiflogistisch aperitif to spleen fortifying stew, this supper is sure to stave off persistent urban pathogens and unleash the hypochondric in all of us.

Cooked up by Wietske Maas in collaboration with FoAM as part of the Blinde Vlekken manifestation.

http://www.urbanibalism.org/urban-sanatorium-supper

Green Food

maja — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:41:57 +0000

Start: 2009-05-24 10:00 GMT+2

End: 2009-05-27 20:00 GMT+2

The gRig Research retreat in Slovenia, organised by Kibla and designed by FoAM will focus on the topic of food & environment. This retreat will be a part of the series of research retreats organised by gRig partners. About 20 artists, scientists and
researchers from different cultural and professional backgrounds will be brought together to discuss their methodologies, exchange experiences and experiments. The retreat will be facilitated by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (http://www.designswarm.com/)

Rethinking Food #2

maja — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:35:20 +0000

Start: 2009-01-22 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Rethinking Food #2

FoAM, a cross-disciplinary, trans-local laboratory and the artist Kate Rich complicate the equation of food miles. This meal is prepared with products and ingredients freighted in from around the globe, in the spare luggage space of social and cultural travellers.

Feral Trade is a grocery business trading outside commercial systems. Goods hitchhike on other sources of movement, often using the art world as an energy source, harnessing the surplus freight potential of the many journeys logged by artists, curators and audiences to move grocery items intercity.

FoAM's food team prepares, presents and reflects on meals in unexpected contexts and uncertain conditions. They scavenge ingredients and techniques from regional traditions around the world, as well as contemporary innovations of food science. For Burning Ice, they have sourced ingredients from the Feral Trade catalogue of goods, as well as FoAM's international network of cultural travellers, to cook up a trans-local feast with ingredients carried in by friends visiting from Australia, the Balkans, Asia, Scandinavia and various European centres and peripheries.

http://feraltrade.org/
http://x4.fo.am/feeding/

This event is a part of the Burning Ice festival:
http://www.kaaitheater.be/burningice

Real Code at Piksel 08 festival

maja — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:59:46 +0000

Start: 2008-12-06 12:00 GMT+2

End: 2008-12-07 00:00 GMT+2

Nik Gaffney and Maja Kuzmanovic will participate in the Real Code experiment at the Piksel Festival. As a part of FoAM's series of Future prehearsals (inspired by ex-yu "Nothing Can Surprise Us" drills), they will conduct various experiments with food, flavours and expectations, in an environment filled with machinery and software, with little access to organic ingredients. The exercise assumes a small archipelago of is-lands in a post-disaster setting (with degrees of isolation and communication), using a variety of multi-coloured, -flavoured and -textured powders, locally available and hand-carried substances, a selection of collected recipes, measuring instruments, prepared with not much more than a microwave oven and electronic equipment.

more: http://1010.co.uk/org/piksel2008.html

open kitchen

nik — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:19:18 +0000

Open Sauces

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:47:54 +0000

Start: 2008-11-22 18:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-22 23:00 Europe/Brussels

FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators invite you to a synaesthetic dinner, to jointly sample, celebrate and debate the future of food.

Food is a nutritious and delectable product of our reciprocal, sustaining relationship with the environment. It is also one of the oldest cultural expressions, rooted in hospitality and sharing. As the gastronome Brilliat-Savarin noted three centuries ago, “the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”

Open Sauces will unfold in a sequence of experimental courses, matched with drinks, improvised music and esteemed guests. While savouring the foods, the guests will be engaged in table conversations, sharing experiences, recipes and ingredients needed to demystify cultural, environmental, technical and ethical aspects of contemporary food systems. From molecular gastronomy to fair trade, from permaculture to food-tracking, from open source to open sauces, we will blend seemingly unrelated elements of our food chain. In an era riddled with environmental and cultural anomalies, these transdisciplinary and trans-local connections will become one of the keys to our survival, as individuals, communities and species.

With: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Kultivator, Sher Doruff, Maja Kuzmanovic, Alok Nandi, Sneha Solanki, Wietske Maas, Matteo Pasquinelli, Kate Rich, Femke Snelting, Andreas Strauss, Maki Ueda, Allison Zinder and other local and trans-local food experts and enthusiasts.

There are limited places for this event so please RSVP if you would like to attend.

The extended menu (in the form of a cookbook) is available online at http://opensauces.cc/open.sauces.pdf